innuendo

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. An indirect or subtle, usually derogatory implication in expression; an insinuation.

n. Law A plaintiff's interpretation in a libel suit of allegedly libelous or slanderous material.

n. Law A parenthetic explanation of a word or charge in a legal document.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A derogatory hint or reference to a person or thing. An implication or insinuation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. An oblique hint; a remote allusion or reference, usually derogatory to a person or thing not named; an insinuation.

n. An averment employed in pleading, to point the application of matter otherwise unintelligible; an interpretative parenthesis thrown into quoted matter to explain an obscure word or words; -- as, the plaintiff avers that the defendant said that he (innuendo the plaintiff) was a thief.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

[L.] Intimating; insinuating; signifying: a word used at the beginning of an explanatory parenthetical clause in Latin (Middle Latin), and still occasionally in English, pleadings, introducing the person or thing meant: as, he (innuendo the plaintiff) did so and so.

n.; pl. innuendos or innuendoes (-dōz). An oblique hint; an indirect intimation about a person or thing; an allusive or inferential suggestion: commonly used in a bad sense, but sometimes in an innocent one. Also, erroneously, inuendo.

Examples

The word innuendo has appeared in 68 New York Times articles in the past year, including on Aug. 31 in "Bullying Law Puts New Jersey Schools on Spot" by Winnie Hu: "It's not the traditional bullying: the big kid in the schoolyard saying, 'You're going to do what I say,' " Richard Bergacs, an assistant principal at North Hunterdon High, said.